


What’s Past is Prologue

by TheosOxonian



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29894343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheosOxonian/pseuds/TheosOxonian
Summary: “I’ll make things right between us over the next few days,” Thomas promised dismissively.  “But I have had enough of his voice tonight.  I’m done with indulging him.  And you’re home,” he concluded with a soft smile, its edges wavering just a little as he gazed down at James, eyes full of a deep, bright affection.“I am,” James agreed just as softly, lifting his face to accept what he’d been craving since he first set eyes on Thomas again.  A kiss which was firm and demanding and achingly tender all at once.  And which required first one repetition, and then another.___I have just discovered Black Sails, and because Thomas and James hurt my heart I felt compelled to give them an evening of peace amongst episode XIII.   So I have allowed them 24 hours between James coming home from Nassau and things ending.As ever thanks go to Vix, who has not only tolerated me raving about the show for weeks, but has dedicated 38 hours of her life to watching it.  A commitment to fanfic beta duties that is definitely above and beyond!
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	What’s Past is Prologue

12th December 1707 – 17 Bruton Street - London

James shifted uncomfortably on the narrow settee, listening with barely even half an ear as Thomas, Miranda and Peter continued their increasingly stale debate about the implications of the murder of Governor Thomson’s family. Implications he’d had five weeks to turn over in his own mind, and tonight the topic could not hold his attention. Not when he was hungry and weary and the heat of fire was making his skin itch beneath the layers of his uniform. Not when the dark marble of the hall pillars and the heavy tones of the murals pressed almost bodily upon him, and made his head shimmer and swim. 

Sidling as far away from the fire as he could, he eased a finger into his stock, tugging the thick linen away from his neck, supressing a sigh as heard Peter’s frustrated voice rise to make the same retort about parliamentary arithmetic as he’d offered to Thomas’ last argument. They were talking in circles; each preaching at the other. Peter, lacking Thomas’ oratorical skills, had hardened his position into rigid political expediency an hour ago. And Thomas, having run through his full arsenal of moral arguments was now on German Radicalism by way of Liebnitz and Wolff. 

On another day such a ridiculous intellectual position might have amused him. Were this a gathering in the east library, where the light of innumerable candles danced on highly polished wood, and smuggled brandy was thick and fragrant on his tongue, and the gold brocades seemed to cloister them in an imaginative haven of their own making. Were it not a tired argument in the impersonal void of the hall, marked out by the heavy, sonorous beat of the grandfather clock. An argument which, despite Thomas’ fervour, James couldn’t help but feel Peter was carrying the day.

He found himself frowning as he watched Miranda play her usual peacekeeping role, softening her voice when tempers started to rise, skilfully diverting arguments that drifted toward the personal, and quite subtly, but quite deliberately offering support to both men. This was the first time he’d stood outside one of their debates in over a year and he found himself pondering what it was she hoped to achieve by being so carefully equivocal. Whether it was simple peacekeeping, nothing more than the workings of a diplomatic mind, or whether in fact she was leaving herself sea room should the balance of the battle shift. It was an uncharitable thought and one that would disappoint Thomas if he voiced it. And yet somehow, all these months later he still found himself holding Miranda’s motives in question.

Dismissing the thought, James stood up and briskly crossed the room to the window, drawing back the drapes a little to stare out into the night, letting the cooler air ease a little of his irritation. The rain showers that had plagued them over the Downs had finally ceased, the clouds clearing rapidly from the south-west to reveal a half moon that bled scant light into the sky. The lamps were lit across the city, and he let his eyes idly follow wind of Bruton Mews until its fading halos were swallowed into the wide glow of Piccadilly. 

He felt Thomas come to stand beside him and smiled in welcome, both of them taking a moment to watch a man in the Duke of Devonshire’s livery test the alley gates on their side of the street, only moving on once he was satisfied the denizens of the yards and stables to the north did not have easy access to the polite, gentrified streets of his master’s realm. 

“I’m sorry, I’ve been utterly neglecting you,” Thomas said, taking hold of James’ hand as he shifted their position to conceal the gesture, his voice pitched too low to carry to the others.

“I knew my news would provoke debate,” James said impassively, his eyes fluttering shut at the simple, sweet delight of once again feeling Thomas’ thumb caress the skin of his palm.

“But not a debate you wished to see through to the end?” Thomas queried.

“Voyages east are often uneventful,” James said with a shrug. “All a watch need do is chart course and speed, it leaves a lot of time to think. I’ve turned this over in my mind for the last few weeks, examined it from every position I could find. Although I hadn’t thought to bring empirical determinism to bear on the problem,” he said with an affectionate smile. “I know you adore the purity of a well tested, irreducible proposition, but you know as well as I do that most people cannot be swayed by intellectual rationalism alone,” he reminded Thomas. “Men like Peter may have one foot in your salon, but the other is firmly planted in the mud and mire of life. They need you to accept their compromises and accommodations, the concessions they must make.”

“I can compromise,” Thomas objected.

James shook his head lightly. “In the execution of an idea perhaps,” he agreed, “but you cannot compromise the idea itself, the principle. For you it is right to forgive, and so we pursue the pardons,” he said unable to stop the slight sigh the words produced. “That is the first, irreducible position from which all else flows. That men, forgiven of their _‘sins and lawless acts’_ will be free to begin anew, no longer bound by fear and the consequences of poor choices, born again into the garden,” he said, parroting Thomas’ well rehearsed position with a fond, but not entirely uncritical edge to his voice. “But the rest of the world finds it very difficult to hear that men should not be held to account for transgressing principles they hold to be irreducible,” he continued as he glanced over at Thomas, carefully searching his face as he watched him absorb the statement.

“Are you saying you now think the pardons are wrong?” Thomas asked incredulously, his voice little more than a whisper as though he sought to shield the idea from the power of speech, a touch of hurt settling into his face. “You told us earlier you would plead the case directly to Hennessey.”

“And I will,” James said quickly. “I believe they’re right,” he assured, “but the question of what we’re pardoning is perhaps more difficult than we realised,” he said, with a sigh, aware that his words were unclear, enigmatic even, but unwilling to discuss things openly among their quartet until he’d had time to talk to Thomas, to turn things over between them. To test out the ideas that were playing around his mind, things that were dangerous to propose, but who’s real danger, he feared, lay in their seductive appeal. 

Because what he’d seen and learned of the New World hadn’t been what they’d expected. Rather than lawless men defiantly raging at their exclusion, he’d seen disparate groups organising themselves under a collective banner. He’d seen women hold a greater measure of power and authority than was possible anywhere in Europe, seen Jew and Catholic and Protestant share the same shade on a street corner, seen slaves walk the streets as freemen. Men free to choose to work for honest wages, or free turn to piracy and raiding. And that no matter which way he turned that simple fact, no matter how many angles he viewed it from, in its irreducible form it seemed to be that the lawlessness they wished to stop was also that which enabled previously chained men to exercise their divinely given free will. 

That it seemed to him the New World was far more than any of them had ever understood. It wasn’t the promise of a clean slate, something the old world could take and write it’s enlightened pronouncements upon, and watch flourish with a paternal pride. Instead it seemed to be some chaotic and complicated experiment that sought to test what would happen when men used their God given freedom to chose a path, and then stopped short of imposing that choice on others.

James watched Thomas search his eyes for a long moment before he glanced away, nodding at whatever he had seen. “You have more to tell,” he concluded, his eyes flickering back into the room.

“Later,” James confirmed as a look of acknowledgement passed between them. 

“Very well,” Thomas agreed as he shifted his stance, establishing the necessary polite distance that had been eroded as they’d whispered together. “So, what have you been thinking about for the last hour if not our debate?” he asked. “You look tired,” he added, his tone sharpening a little as he glanced across at James.

“I’m fine,” James said, dismissing his concern with a gentle squeeze of their hands. “And in truth I think I was subconsciously contemplating Ovid.”

“His whole oeuvre?” Thomas teased.

“Ars Amatoria,” James said with a smile. “Crops are always more fertile in someone else’s field, and so on...”

Thomas regarded him with a puzzled expression, shaking his head after a moment. “No, I’m afraid you’ll have to explain that more fully,” he said, lowering his mouth to James’ ear as he added, “although I feel any comparative discussion as to the merits of udders should perhaps be left to the bedroom…”

James laughed softly, turning his head away and resisting the urge to sway into Thomas. An urge that became more difficult as the reality of his lover imposed itself on more of his senses. The press of their shoulders, the scent of his cologne, the feel of long, delicate fingers playing with his own. 

“I was merely realising,” James said, “that for the last week, as England neared and the weather grew colder, and with only the hardest tack and the toughest meat left, I craved only a fireplace and a soft bed. But then here I am, in a room that’s warm and opulent, and I find myself missing the simplicity of my ship. And not only missing it, but craving both the Spartan intimacy of my cabin and the endless space of the sea. Which are contradictory things, as the need for space to be bounded and boundless must be binary opposites. And it all seemed vey contrary, and so the only way it all made sense was…”

“…crops,” Thomas concluded as he took James’ chin and turned his face into the light of a candelabra. “You are tired,” he concluded firmly, “you only tend toward the philosophic when you’re dead on your feet. When did you last eat?” he demanded realising that beneath his tan and beard James was unusually pale.

“..Midhurst? I think,” James said as thought back through the day. “Might have been Easebourne. First time we changed horses anyway. We caught a meal at the inn.”

“What were you doing in Midhurst?” Thomas demanded suddenly, “that’s no where near the turnpike? In fact what are you doing here?” he added, the sharpness of his tone catching the attention of the others and quelling the low murmur of conversation on the other side of the room. “Your ship docked at Portsmouth this morning, there is no conceivable way you can be standing in this hall.”

“We came in on the first tide and anchored off Spithead this morning,” James agreed, instinctively correcting Thomas’ terminology. “It was mid-morning by the time I’d cleared the harbourmaster, dropped my logs in to the Admiral Superintendent and given my verbal report to his clerk. The coach was obviously long gone. But the post riders leave around noon, I came cross country with them. I left my sea-chest at The Hart, it should arrive at some point over the next few days.”

Thomas caught James’ shoulder and turned them to face each other, the drapes quietly falling shut in the space they absented. “You’re telling me you returned from a ninety seven day sea voyage, waited on frustrating bureaucrats for half a day and then rode across country for seven hours?” he demanded, studying James placid expression, with growing disbelief. An expression that suggested none of that was of note, and Thomas were making an unnecessary fuss. And because he had never yet failed to consider a suggestion James made, even the unvoiced ones, he found himself contemplating the idea that extremes of physical exertion were not unusual to James. He let his gaze drift over James broad chest, the strong arms that filled out his uniform sleeves more than they had done when he left, the tarnish on his coat buttons, and the water stained and scuffed boots. Suddenly seeing, perhaps for the first time, the reality of the naval commander that lived within a man he’d only even known in genteel company. The man who was strong and determined and boundless. Who continually surpassed both peers and superiors because he refused to accept that basic reality could not be remade to suit his will. For whom the simple facts of geography, distance and the state of England’s roads fell away as minor impediments before a creative mind, a disciplined body and a will of iron. Realising for the first time why this man had been the darling of the _Gazette_ back when they’d met.

“Good Lord you’re magnificent,” he breathed, unable to stop his eyes flickering to James’ thighs and imagining him astride a horse, resolving quite firmly that riding would feature in their future. “But what the hell are you doing being polite? Come and sit in the study,” he insisted, turning James once again and directing him toward the door, hoping that the movement he could hear was Miranda graciously convincing Peter to depart without further ruffling his all too sensitive feathers.

“Shouldn’t we say goodbye?” James asked, glancing back over his shoulder as Thomas pushed him into the room, shutting the door firmly behind them.

“No, I’m annoyed with him,” Thomas said, a little petulance colouring his tone. He strode over to the window and flung open both leaded casements before coming to stand in front of James, fingers working deftly at the buckle of the dark stock which he dropped carelessly onto the desk and easing open the soft collar beneath, bearing skin to the cool of the night air. 

Thomas rested his hands against James’ collarbone, feeling the warmth of his body through the heavier cotton of his winter shirt, and let out a deep sigh that James caught and echoed.

“I’ll make things right between us over the next few days,” Thomas promised dismissively. “But I have had enough of his voice tonight. I’m done with indulging him. And you’re home,” he concluded with a soft smile, its edges wavering just a little as he gazed down at James, eyes full of a deep, bright affection.

“I am,” James agreed just as softly, lifting his face to accept what he’d been craving since he first set eyes on Thomas again. A kiss which was firm and demanding and achingly tender all at once. And which required first one repetition, and then another. 

“Next time I come home, please don’t have guests round,” James murmured as he finally made to draw away, Thomas arresting the move with a hand on the back of his neck, keeping them close.

“Right this moment I am not prepared to let you more than a foot away from me,” Thomas insisted as he stole another kiss, “the question of you leaving again, such that returning is necessary, is not even on the table.”

“I think I can live with that,” James agreed as he nuzzled at Thomas’ cheek, letting himself be drawn forward as Thomas perched on the edge of his desk, moving to stand between his legs as they folded into each other. They rested there for several long minutes, trading more kisses and soft exchanges of words, finding solace in the simple presence of each other.

“Do you know, you still taste of the sea?” Thomas observed, drawing his thumb along James lower lip, shivering as James drew the digit into his mouth, grazing his teeth provocatively over its pad. 

He released it as he laughed softly, but kindly. “You make that sound romantic,” he said, “but the reality is I’ve got salt in my hair, in my uniform and quite a few unmentionable places, given that I haven’t bathed in freshwater since leaving Port Royal.”

“Yes,” Thomas acknowledged with a laugh of his own, “put like that I can see why a life at sea is grandly romantic in the concept, but might lose something in the living.”

“It has it rewards,” James assured. “Watching the sun rise over a calm sea is always beautiful. Peaceful. The way the water changes from black to cobalt to…well anything from grey to the colour of your eyes,” he said reaching out stroke Thomas’ face. “The way the canvas bows under sail, and the way the ship strains and moans and always lets you know how she’s feeling.” 

“I see my future involves competing with hulks for your affection,” Thomas said, raising an eyebrow as James sighed.

“Darling, I love that you try, but please leave naval idiolect well alone,” he advised. “A hulk is a ship that is incapable of going to sea. No one competes with, or for, one.”

“Noted,” Thomas agreed as he took hold of James’ upper arms and eased them a little apart. “You do realise you’re starting to tremble,” he observed with a worried frown, eyes once again lingering on the pallor of James’ face. “You need feeding,” he said definitively. “And then bed, I think,” he added. 

“Oh, yes please,” James agreed fervently, imagining with expectant delight the compound joys of Thomas, soft cotton and a feather bed, the subtle delights that were to be found in each ivory tone. He paused, swallowing hard and glancing almost guiltily around the room, before admitting softly, “I have been thinking of your skin in that bed since the day I left. How you look in candlelight. How you move when I touch you. I want the wall sconces by the bed lit, but nothing else.”

“Really…?” Thomas asked quietly, his voice husky with dark intimacy of James’ words. He let his eyes drift to James’ lips, enjoying the anticipation of a kiss that he knew would be far less sweet than those of their earlier greeting, something that was rough with the promise a man’s desire and fuelled by months of denial and distance. A kiss that was true to its promise and left them both trembling and breathless when they parted, James resting heavily against him, his face pressed into Thomas’ neck.

“Much as I applaud your fantasies my love,” Thomas said once he had gathered himself, his fingers rubbing meditatively at the shoulder seam of James’ uniform. “I believe, despite protestations, you are exhausted,” he concluded gently. 

“No,” James objected as he lifted his head to stare into Thomas’ eyes, communicating the impossibility of denying this reunion for something so pedestrian as sleep. “I rested well enough last night. I’m not so much tired, as…weary of company and noise, I think. Ships are very settled things and today has been quite the opposite.”

“And things have hardly been settled since you returned home,” Thomas agreed with a regretful sigh. He studied James for a long moment, expression narrowed as he measured the truth of his statement. “I suppose your eyes are not bruised,” he acknowledged, “but perhaps coffee as well?” he suggested slipping off the desk as James nodded his assent. 

Thomas crossed the few paces to the door and opened it a little way, waiting a moment for one of the discretely ubiquitous footmen to appear. 

“I realise it’s late but please ask cook to prepare something hot for Lieutenant McGraw,” he instructed briskly. “Not beef. And coffee for two. We’ll partake in here. And please let Nichols know we’ll be retiring in about an hour. He’s to make sure there’s a hot bath ready in my bedroom, and lay out my dressing set,” he concluded.

“Is Haitt still employed,” James interjected.

“Yes…?” Thomas agreed questioningly, turning back into the room as he held up a hand to stall the footman.

“Him, not Nichols,” James insisted simply, watching with Thomas for the nod of acknowledgement from the man. A nod that always seemed to take a little longer when the servants were forced to recognise instructions from him.

“It’s still disconcerting they rarely speak,” James said as the door slid soundlessly shut, “even the most terrified of midshipman can manage to acknowledge an order,” he observed, watching with idle interest as Thomas shrugged off his frockcoat and folded it over the back of one the wooden chairs before dropping into its neighbour with uncharacteristic gracelessness.

“Midshipman are required to have a presence, servants on the other hand must develop a certain…attentive absence,” Thomas mused. “Besides I don’t order them around,” he objected as he bent to unlace the ribbons on his shoes. “Even without somebody commenting on the arrogance of it all, I was always unfailingly polite. Want to tell me why you don’t like Nichols?” he asked, glancing up for a moment.

“It’s he who doesn’t like me,” James corrected as he shrugged. “He stares. Balefully. I’ve told you before.”

“And I still say you’re imagining it,” Thomas insisted, “but if you’re happier with Haitt then he can attend us tonight.”

“Are those silk?” James asked in askance as he watched Thomas worry at a tight knot until it came loose under his fingers. “Beaded, lilac silk?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Thomas agreed as he twisted in the chair, kicking his legs over an arm and stretching out toward James, rotating his foot in display, before toeing off both shoes and letting them fall haphazardly to the rug. “My corvisor and tailor both agreed they were a final touch of opulence punctuating the end of an elegantly stockinged leg,” he declared grandly.

“Did they?” James asked with a dry chuckle as he followed Thomas’ example, slipping off his own coat before attending to his sword belt and waistcoat, setting them neatly on the seat of the chair. He set to rolling up the loose cuffs of his shirt with practiced ease, and crossed the room, coming to pause beside the discarded footwear.

“The shoes seem a little…”

“Foppish?” Thomas offered, smiling at the hum of agreement that met the word. “They pleased Miranda,” he said with a shrug as he drew he legs up, resting his feet on the arm of the chair in a shockingly unlordly display of insouciance. “And Walpole’s wife. We had dinner with them a few weeks ago,” he confirmed at James’ questioning look. 

“So the shoes? Not particularly my taste,” James said “but an elegantly stockinged leg…?” he pondered, reaching out to run a hand along the line of Thomas’ calf, “that I find very much to my taste,” he confirmed warmly, letting his fingers trail back up toward Thomas’ knee teasing at buckle band of his breeches, his eyes alight with mischievous promise. 

“Heavens, I missed you,” Thomas breathed, reaching out to tangle his fingers with James’ and lift them to his lips. He drew James down to perch opposite him, sighing with contentment as James shifted to lean against him, resting his cheek on Thomas’ knee and gazing over at him with fond affection.

“I always knew I disliked modern furniture,” Thomas observed, seemingly apropos of nothing, leading James to glance at the dark Jacobean oak with puzzled frown. “None of those spindly Queen Anne affairs would allow this,” he said, with a vague gesture toward their bodies. “And they’re uncomfortable,” he added. “I know you hate the hall settees.”

“Ah, Miranda has been continuing the campaign to update the study in my absence,” James concluded in a rush of understanding, feeling a little wistful at being reminded of things he’d missed, but warmed by the fact that despite the fears he’d had when leaving everything was still waiting for him. He and Thomas were still both here, whole and unchanged.

“I have manfully resisted her efforts,” Thomas declared loftily. “I have been shown innumerable swatches, three pattern books, and been asked to trial a dozen different models of chair. Nothing has yet been produced which I found satisfactory, in the singular or combination.”

“Why are you so determined to frustrate it?” James asked with a laugh, thinking back to the early discussions on the subject, when he had recognised the opening steps of their familiar dance. In which whatever one wanted the other acquiesced to, after whatever token resistance was required to satisfy their understanding of form’s sake. Because for all their affection for each other, neither Miranda nor James were truly invested in the other, happy to pursue a shared goal if they each arrived at it independently, but otherwise uninterested in finding a common purpose in life, and even less interested in arguing about where they diverged. 

“We conducted much of our courtship in here, you and I,” Thomas mused, glanced around the room with a quiet satisfaction. “I like that it carries those memories,” he said, lifting a hand to toy with James’ hair, and frowning as his fingers immediately met resistance.

“Salt,” James said wryly.

“You are washing your hair before bed,” Thomas concluded firmly, and James nodded peaceably, his cheek rubbing against Thomas’ leg. 

“So, what else was it you wanted to tell me about your voyage?” Thomas probed. “Whatever you didn’t wish to address in front of Miranda and Peter?”

James looked over at him for a long minute, carefully forming the presentation of what he wanted to say, and in so doing becoming acutely aware that he _wasn’t_ sure what he wanted to say. That despite the long days of the return voyage what he truly wanted to address with Thomas wasn’t something he dared commit even to his private diary, and without the ritual of ordering and committing his thoughts to papers, the ideas still roamed within the realm of his imagining. 

“Is this something to do with Port Royal?” Thomas prompted into the silence. “You mentioned it earlier. It surprised me, you weren’t due to call there.“

“I wasn’t,” James agreed. “And it does,” he confirmed, thankful that he could start with something he had already ordered. Something sat in his log, which would eventually make its way through the admiralty and presumably to Alfred Hamilton one day. 

“Things in the New World are not as simple as you might imagine,” James began.

“I don’t imagine they’re simple at all,” Thomas interjected quickly, his defensiveness subsiding as James lay a placating hand on his arm.

“Just listen,” James chided. “Take timber for instance,” he began. “It should be a readily available resource, there are innumerable trees on every coast, and any man is capable of swinging an axe. And yet, when landing in Charles Town to make arrangements for outward resupply before sailing south to the Islands, I was told that there were no ship’s spars to be had anywhere on the mainland coast. At least none that I was likely to find of appropriate quality for a long sea voyage. The only place such things were available was Port Royal, where a man named Green had warehouses and a yard which supplied the ocean going trade.”

“Is ships’ timber often a monopoly?” Thomas asked.

“No,” James said, “any competent shipwright along the whole of the south coast knows how to source and shape oak, it’s not a particularly unique skill. However, live oak isn’t so readily available in the Bahamas, it mostly grows on Jamaica I’m told and is apparently most plentiful on the unchartered islands to her north-west. Islands that sit south of Spanish Cuba, west of the lawless Haiti and French Dominique. And Port Royal herself is controlled by a man named Bradford, a man who used to lead pirate crews, but who is intelligent enough to understand the benefits that come with the protection of England’s Queen, and shrewd enough to walk the dangerous line between his new found legitimacy and his old friends. Without ostensibly taking bribes or tolerating illegality,” he said with a wry glance at Thomas. “A governor who is just about honest enough that adventurous young men from the Inns of Court feel able to move into the new houses on the hill and practice without threat to their person or their reputation.”

“The timber trade is dominated by a single man,” he continued as Thomas absorbed his previous pronouncement in silence. “I never learned his name and was given the distinct impression that doing so would be to my disadvantage. He was also previously a pirate captain, until he convinced his crew there was more money to be made from felling trees and selling the worked timber to former colleagues, than there was from staying at sea. That as other crews risked their lives hunting and raiding, they could grow fat and rich by supplying what others needed. At least that’s the story of how it all began, and it might be true for all I know, but despite his initial intention, he now presides over a terrified slave camp, children born into a life of labour, everyone branded such that if they ever escape they can be claimed and returned.“

“And because he does not pay wages, and has the skills of men who spent a life at sea, who know what good timber looks like and how to work it, the goods he produces are of high quality and low in price. And because he is not a pirate anymore, because he owns what the civilised world likes to call a timber plantation, and runs it with slave labour just as on the sugar and tobacco plantations, then legitimate merchantmen see in his business something they recognise, and happily ply the trade from his island. And legitimate warehouses sell his goods to market. To pirates and the navy and merchant men. To the English and Spanish and French and Dutch. And because everyone needs his goods, he and those merchants are left unharassed in waters that are otherwise the most dangerous in the world.”

“Yes,” Thomas said slowly as he regarded James with a puzzled expression, “though I’m not entirely sure I see your point. Piracy and slavery are manifestations of all that is wrong with the world and their continued existence forces good men to into morally dubious compromises. We know this. It is complex, and that’s why we agreed to address the underlying conditions, it being the only way to prevent ourselves chasing the many heads of the hydra.”

“My point,” James said patiently, “is that there is a delicate balance at work in those Islands, one that ties all parties and nations together in ways that I don’t think you could understand if you studied the place for a year, for five years. You talk of underlying conditions, but what I am telling you is that the conditions that underpin legitimate empires, and the very different conditions that underpin the pirates, both combine and coexist to create the reality that is the New World. There’s a complex network of conditions and motives and need, that’s difficult to appreciate without seeing first hand. And yes, I’ve got numerous accounts in my diaries; you can read them all when they arrive,” James said, stilling the obvious questions he could see forming on Thomas’ lips. A demand to be told about everything James had experienced, right here and right now. 

“But my point is that we have seen the matter of the Indies as…pivoting…on the simple question of how to civilise a place that has fallen victim to the chaos of lawlessness. Of the dualism of those two states. We’ve argued that an empire brave enough to provide demonstrable justice based on the principles of Christian compassion, to create new conditions of safety and freedom, will reap the rewards that happen when men are given the freedom to make good choices. Thus piracy will fall away and the new world fulfils her potential...etcetera…ad infinitum,” James concluded. 

“Yes,” Thomas agreed as though the point were patently obvious. “Which is why the pardons are self-evidently justified, they’re a demonstration of that compassion, that people can have faith in the promises we make. They’re the irreducible principle from which all we want to build can flow.“

“I know,” James agreed. “Only that dualism does not exist,” he said, catching Thomas’ brilliant blue eyes and holding that penetrating gaze as he tried to express the truth of that statement, knowing this was the sentiment Thomas needed to understand, this was the conclusion he hadn’t dared to fully realise. Not until he looked upon Thomas and felt the thrill of its potential flutter nervously within him. That the New World was a place where the rules of the old need not bind and limit the lives of men. 

“The place is not so lawless as we think,” he continued. “There are rules which are enforced, and not just through violence and intimidation. Codified systems by which men have agreed to live, shared principles that cohere people into groups. Principles that I fear you’d recognise,” James said, and the touch of sadness in his tone caused Thomas to tilt his head quizzically. “I have been forced to wonder many times on the journey home, whether the pirates we are working to disband may very well not embody everything you want achieve,” James concluded softly. “And perhaps more,” he added softer again.

He held Thomas’ eyes, and he watched with a certain grim amusement as Thomas’ face contorted itself, his mouth settling to form a question just moments before the next rose up and stole its voice, his mind working faster than his body could hope to respond.

“Do you know men on ships refer to each other as mates?” James asked, interrupting the internal battle before Thomas was forced to admit he’d been rendered speechless. 

“Of course,” Thomas said, irritated confusion evident in his tone as he started at the unexpected question. “Shipmates, crewmates, it’s common parlance.”

“And do you know it’s derivation?” James asked, continuing on at Thomas’ half-hearted shrug. “It’s from the French, _matelotage_ , meaning literally seamanship, although also having the sense of consortship. A sister ship…a partner,” James said at Thomas still questioning look. “The full breadth of its meaning doesn’t have an exact English translation, it carries with it the sense of being in union with someone, of sharing the same goals, of acting together, of being alongside, supporting each other. As a crewmates do, or consort ships do,” he finished. 

“What are you blathering on about?” Thomas demanded, struggling to push himself into an upright position from his sprawl across the chair. “Are we talking about timber, pirates or shipmates here.”

“All of them, and that’s the point,” James said with a sigh, offering an arm to support Thomas efforts just as they were interrupted by a discrete knock on the door. 

“I think an argument has just been saved by the arrival of your meal,” Thomas said as they stilled, staring at each other for a long moment, before Thomas swung his legs balletically over James’ head and stood to receive the footmen who bore two trays and a folding serving table between them. 

They remained in a slightly tense silence as the table was set up beside the desk, the men working with an economy of movement and careful poise that reminded James a little of experienced topmen. Men who knew what their environment demanded of them and inhabited it with a quiet grace.

“Is that all, my Lord?” the elder of the pair asked, as the younger moved to gather up their discarded coats and Thomas’ shoes. Who, when candlelight shone on the face under the crisply styled hairpiece didn’t look to be much more than a boy of fourteen, already clearly years into his service here, and with likely no prospect of any other role in life. 

“Thank you, yes,” Thomas agreed, the pair clearly dismissed from his mind long before they had even managed to leave the room.

“Here,” Thomas said, his tone apologetic as he lifted the larger of the serving lids and set the plate on the desk, recognising the grilled chop and tureen of mixed vegetables as an echo of his own earlier meal. “Your dinner,” he said, presenting James’s cutlery with a flourish and retreating to let him to eat in peace. He wandered to the window seat, all but closing the casements and choosing to leave the drapes open, knowing James found the house over heated at the best of times, and would likely feel it even more after weeks in the Atlantic. 

Resting a hand on the wall he bent to pick up his discarded Flasket from the cushion and flicked idly through its pages. He soon tossed it aside again, finding its pastorally pining nymphs and shepherds to be even less satisfying than they had been a few days earlier. When restlessness had drawn him away from his work, and he’d roved the bookshelves for something to occupy his mind, collecting sonnets and verse plays before folding himself into the corner of the window seat. Miranda had found him there hours later, chilled and melancholy, gazing east to where the shimmer of the Thames was just visible beyond Northumberland House, and the occasional set of sails could be seen to drift by.

Looking back to James now, watching the subtle play of muscles beneath his loose shirt, the sheer promise of power in his wide back, he wondered how he’d ever thought that poetry could hope to capture James McGraw. James, who was too elemental, too beautifully raw to ever be contained within bias and bindings. 

He let himself indulge a few moments longer, watching James’ movements slow as the edge was taken off his hunger and he let himself begin to savour the meal. Clearly enjoying meat that hadn’t been marinating in brine for two months, and vegetables that displayed a variety beyond peas. He smiled with borrowed pleasure as James finally set the dinner plate aside and took his first bite of cook’s barberry torte, the remembered burst of its tart sweetness setting his own mouth to water. 

He crossed the room then and attended to the coffee, inhaling the rich, dark aroma with his usual satisfaction. He set a cup at James’ elbow, leaving it black and unsweetened, and rested his own on a thigh as he balanced nimbly on the corner of the desk.

“Take a sip,” Thomas advised, as James halted his assault on the cake and glanced questioningly in his direction. 

“Oh I know it’s fashionable to have wine with dessert,” Thomas commented idly reaching out to tug the cake fork from James’ grasp and stealing a small piece of the torte for himself. “But trust me when I say the combination of coffee and cake is not to be missed. Try it,” Thomas encouraged as he cut a larger piece and held it out in offering.

James folded his hands underneath his chin and fixed both Thomas and the fork with a cautious, but considering expression. Something that suggested he was trying to work out whether the prospect of being fed sweatmeats was an insult to his understanding of manhood or a legitimate intimacy between lovers. 

“Indulge me?” Thomas suggested with a grin, one that only widened when James fixed him with a glare that said his attempt at manipulation was both woefully transparent and infuriatingly effective. 

The force of his expression didn’t lessen as he let his lips part a little, waiting with what was obviously increasing embarrassment as Thomas raised the fork and slipped the offering into his mouth. He watched avidly as James’ lips closed over the fork, tongue reaching out to steady it’s progress into his mouth, feeling the press and the pull of it as he drew the fork slowly away. Memorising all the sensual details he could, sadly aware he would not be permitted to do this again, that the helpless passivity of it clearly offended something deep within James.

“Now take a drink,” Thomas insisted, lowering the fork and letting it rest quiescent and out of sight. “Well?” he asked after moment.

“The coffee is dry and bitter; the cake is sweet and moist, the juxtapositions are rather obvious,” James said with a puzzled shake of his head.

Thomas glared at him for a moment before realising he was being teased, and tapped the fork against James’ nose in light admonishment, letting him reclaim the implement without a fight. 

“It is delightful dear,” James assured him as he bent to finish the remainder of his meal in a manner that warned against further attempts at intervention. He sat back when done, accepting the renewed coffee cup that Thomas brought as he came to perch on the arm of the chair.

“You’re really not going to stray more than a foot from my side are you?” James asked fondly, reaching an arm around Thomas’ waist and tugging him closer.

“No,” Thomas agreed as he turned into James, leaning into the strength of his chest and letting himself be held. Letting the steady rise and fall of his breathing set his own body into gentle motion. Letting them both remember what it was to be at peace within the walls of this house, in those rare moments when they both found it within themselves to be still.

The lantern clock on the mantelpiece chimed a quarter hour and from outside the window the occasional clatter of a passing carriage could be heard. They seemed idle, irrelevant things, born of other people’s concerns and curiosities. Things which were not the warmth of James against his cheek and the weight of a hand in his hair, and the final easing of his restiveness. 

“Do you wish to try and explain to me a little more of what you’ve seen of New Providence?” Thomas eventually asked softly, “or can I please take you to bed?”

James turned his head to press a kiss to Thomas’ temple. “I have met you before,” he said fondly, “so let us not pretend those are oppositional choices. You may take me to bed and we will continue to talk,” he said with warm affection.

“We can go to bed and not talk,” Thomas offered with a teasing smile, that faltered just a little as James laughed openly.

“Oh love,” James said with a rueful shake of his head, “I cannot think of a single instance of you bedding me where talking were not involved. At this point I think we can almost consider it a necessary precursor to the act.”

“Well that’s untrue,” Thomas objected firmly. “For one, I don’t remember there being much talking the night we returned from dinner with the Palmers. You were so impatient you growled at the servants as they tried to take your coat, and then bodily removed Nichols from my dressing room. Come to think of it, misplaced guilt about that incident might explain why you continue to invent ill-feeling between you,” Thomas mused.

“There may not have been much talking once we returned here,” James agreed, “but my recollection of that night is that your performance over dinner and the debate that followed was nothing more than three hours of carefully designed torture. And…” he said pressing a single finger to Thomas’ lips and pausing for effect, “…you are talking now,” he concluded with more than a hint of smug triumph.

Thomas considered that point for a moment, before accepting it had no possible answer with a wry dip of his head. “Very well,” he conceded reached over to place both their cups on the nearest side table, “herein I shall still my tongue,” he promised. 

“Don’t trouble yourself,” James said as they stood to leave, “I’ve already made peace with the fact that should you precede me from this life, I will be met at the pearly gates by the sound of you arguing with St Peter for a rational system of justice by which the worth of men’s souls can be weighed. Something codified and with metrics no doubt,” he said with a smile.

“And if you precede me?” Thomas asked, in spite of his statement not two seconds earlier.

“Then you will find I have neatly avoided any need for lengthy debate by instigating such a system for you,” James said, not entirely sure he didn’t imagine the admonishing pat delivered to the seat of his breeches. 

The hall was empty as they exited, the main candles extinguished, only those lighting doorways and passages still flickering against the dark of the evening. They crossed the narrow width of the hall and passed out into the atrium in near silence, only the tread of James boots marking any sound on the parquet floor, and even that falling away as they mounted the burgundy carpet of the stairs. The second floor was quieter still, and as they made their way to Thomas’ rooms there was only the occasional line of light on a papered wall to suggest they were not wholly alone in the world. That behind discreet doors the service corridors still burned with bright industry.

The room was empty as they entered, the pillared bed away to the right cast into unusual shadow by the screens set up around the fireplace, leaving only a corner of the coverlet illuminated by the glow spilling from the dressing room.

Thomas peered around the nearest partition, noting with approval that not only was the bath ready, but that the large, marble topped console table had been moved from its usual place beneath a window to house linens, soap and brushes. As well as several items he hadn’t requested, a silver dish of salts, two bottles of fragranced oils and a carafe of wine.

His eyed the figure that emerged from the dressing room thoughtfully, but made no remark as Haitt paused a discrete distance off, waiting for Thomas’ nod before he approached further. 

James, although unabashed by the idea of others seeing him dishabille, had never yet reconciled himself to the idea of being attended to, and predictably retreated a few paces, ignoring Thomas’ amused smile as he moved to sit on the high mattress and tugged off his black cavalier boots, setting them tidily at its foot. He discarded his breeches and smallclothes beside them but left his shirt alone, shivering lightly as the draught in the room fluttered its tails against his thighs. 

James glanced at where their dressing gowns were folded onto the pillows, but as retrieving his involved navigating the room’s other occupants, he remained still, leaning a shoulder against one of the bed’s carved pillars as he watched Thomas briskly undress. His waistcoat already discarded, Haitt kneeling to unfasten the buttons of his breeches, Thomas resting first one and then the other leg upon the footstool as hose were delicately rolled away from his calves. He attend to his own placket as Haitt set them aside, before raising his arms to allow the laces of his breeches to be loosed from his waist and then stepping lightly to the side as they fell to the floor, the whole thing a well choreographed dance he’d been performing since before he even left the nursery. 

Thomas moved then, plucking James hand from where it rested by his side and drawing him into the secluded space within the screens, slipping his arms under James’ shirt and encouraging him to fully disrobe. He allowed himself the luxury of drinking in a sight so long denied, the quite shattering reality of such visceral masculine power held within unblemished, milk pale skin. Pale except for hands and neck where newly acquired tan lines marked the limits of collar and cuff. 

Thomas stepped closer, unable to resist the allure and bent to capture James’ mouth in what he’d intended to be a gentle, affirming kiss. Something soft and light and welcoming. But James pressed eagerly against him, opening to him with a low moan, a hand in the small of his back pulling him close. The kiss was rough for a while, both of them fighting to take what they needed, the echoes of longing and loneliness and fear given mute expression in the press of fingers and the scrape and sting of teeth. Thomas pulled away first, James shirt still tangled in his grasp and he glanced down at it bemusedly before turning his head to survey the room. It was darker now, the dressing room door drawn too, and with a sigh that was probably relief, he dropped it to the floor. 

James gave him a pointed stare as he reached for the hem of Thomas’ nightgown, stilling as his wrists were caught in a gentle grasp, and they silently rehearsed their positions on the matter of the servants and discretion. 

“Your bath is waiting,” Thomas said, giving a nod over his shoulder and preventing any renewed debate on the matter.

“Damn the bath,” James said fervently as he used Thomas’ grip to pull him forward, arching up to demand another kiss, which Thomas used his height to teasingly evade.

“Go on,” Thomas said, turning a shoulder into James chest and forcing him a few steps back, keeping their mouths close, but never quite touching as they advanced toward the fire. “The water will get cold,” he said, letting his lips trail over the shape of James’ jaw, reassured that the strong lines of his sculpted of his face were still present beneath the unfamiliar beard, the one that made his face seem uncharacteristically rounded. “Whereas you, I think, will not spoil for waiting,” he murmured, turning his face away as James made several attempts at capturing his lips. 

They watched each other as James weighed up his chances of successfully pursuing his suit, his eyes close enough that Thomas could pick out each individual colour that made up their depths. Close enough that he could see the determination as it dawned, the flare of heat. He considered the possibility for a moment, of allowing James to take charge, of ceding his height to James’ strength and falling into a warm tussle of limbs and lips. But the idea of even a teasing struggle chimed false this night. He found himself tired of arguments and posturing and the games men played in pursuit of power. The only thing he wanted this evening was the quiet accord of friendship and the joy of a lover’s skin.

So Thomas only shook his head gently and held out a hand, waiting as James acknowledged and then accepted his lead. He steadied James as he lifted a leg over the edge of the tub, testing the temperature of its lazily steaming water with a toe before committing himself fully. And despite his earlier reluctance James quickly sank down, groaning at the welcome embrace of its heat.

“Oh…this beats a barrel of cold seawater,” he said fervently, and Thomas watched with a smile as James’ eyes flickered closed and he sank yet further, resting the back of his neck against the curved rim, his knees rising up to break the surface of the rippling water.

He took a moment to appreciate the sight. The dance of orange, silver and black as the water caught and reflected firelight and shade. The firm planes of James’ body, each curve and hollow that demanded exploration, the sheer architecture of him. The flamed hints in his hair and the paleness of his skin, those things that came from the very edges of England, the wildness Rome had never walked. Places where it was possible to believe the shades of the ancients could be found, some rebellious steel lingering in the hearts of their children.

Amused by his own fanciful imaginings Thomas stepped over to the table, gathering linens and soap onto a silver tray, and carrying them back, along with a handful of the salts which he mixed into the water. James opened an eye as Thomas knelt down beside the tub and began to roll up his shirt sleeves.

“What are you doing?” he asked, instinctually flinching back as Thomas dipped a folded linen into the tub.

The answer was a few moments in coming, Thomas keeping his gaze lowered as lathered the cloth with a bar of his perfumed soap and considered his response. “Loving you,” he eventually said, letting his eyes meet James’ for a single soft moment before he turned back to his task. He gently lifted one of James’ hands from the water, drawing the linen slowly over the skin, spreading a silky foam over its back and then across the palm, dipping into the folds of his fingers as he eased James’ grip open, pushing a little against a lingering resistance. 

“Now, tell me tales of pirates,” he instructed lightly, aware of the battle that was being waged within James. The one that still crept between them from time to time, where James’ need for tenderness and comfort wrestled against the whispers of the world. A battle he usually fought by pinning Thomas’ wrists to the bed, and one that had never yet been quietly won. A battle James fought all the harder if it were observed. So Thomas kept his eyes lowered, and demanded conversation so as to divert James’ own.

“Where to start…?” James mused as he glanced away, idly considering the tapestried hunting scene that decorated the nearest screen. “Perhaps the best place is the observation that pirate crews are a democracy,” he said a moment later.

“You mean they eschew rank?” Thomas asked with interest, thinking back to the debates they’d all had about liberty and leadership and the innate temperaments of men. “If so, how does the decision taking work?” he asked.

“No, I don’t mean there’s no rank,” James said, his shoulders starting to relax as animation crept into his voice, and he gave up his next limb without complaint. “They have all the roles you need to run a ship, captain, boatswain, sailing master and so on. But as I was told it, each position is elected, with every single member of the crew having a vote.”

“Universal suffrage,” Thomas observed with interest. “I see why you said I might recognise some of the pirates’ ideas.”

“Yes,” James agreed. “It was quite a sobering moment when I realised that were I to join a pirate crew I would be granted a thing England denies me; a vote on matters that affect my future.”

“Let’s not add that argument to the voting reform arsenal,” Thomas said dryly. “I can’t see many being persuaded by my standing in the House and arguing for an extension of the franchise lest piracy gain traction.” 

“You essentially have,” James said with a laugh, “is that not the logical extension of your argument that we stop piracy in Nassau by giving men a stake in her future?”

“Touché,” Thomas said with laugh of his own. “And this voting for a captain works?” he asked, urging James to sit forward and allow access to his shoulders and neck. 

“It seems to…” James said carefully. “I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, and I’m sure power can be abused just as it is anywhere else in the world, but it’s not just the roles they vote on. It’s everything. What rules they live by, how their plunder is divided up, how transgressions are punished, what even counts as a transgression…” he said trailing off into distraction for a moment before gathering himself again. “Each ship functions as its own community,” he continued, “men who come together to decide the rules by which they wish to be governed, and then elect those they feel can be trusted to govern. And if a man cannot accept the rules he is free to leave, and if a captain doesn’t rule in a way the crew can accept, he is voted out.”

“How do you know all this?” Thomas asked, as he bent to rinse the linen, trails of water beginning to bead his own forearms as he wrung out the cloth.

“I met a man in a tavern in Port Royal,” James said, thinking back to the two evenings he’d spent ashore, ignoring the twitching of his First Lieutenant and the panic on the faces of his jolly boat crew. Panic that only ever seemed to ease each time he returned to the jetty alive and unharmed. Yet the town hadn’t felt threatening to him. Not to a boy brought up on a coast where farmers and fishermen and smugglers all looked the same come Sunday morning. Port Royal might be on the opposite side of the world to Padstow, but at its heart it was simply a place where different worlds came to breathe the same air, a place where many things must be noticed but never expressed, and one where quiet men were always appreciated. 

His first drink among buccaneers had been spent with his back to the room and his sword arm resting conspicuously on the bar, watching its patrons as distorted reflections in green glass. Through his second, when he’d decided an attack wasn’t imminent, he’d let his eyes spend a little more time studying the grain of the bar, giving them space to consider whether he was some zealot looking for a fight, or just a fool who’d stumbled into the wrong watering hole. Somewhere around the fourth, when he was starting to wonder whether his studied disinterest could outlast the strength of the spiced rum, a man had broken ranks. A cheerful, gossipy boy named Dickey who seemed as unlikely a pirate as you could find. A farmer’s son from the fens who’d thought seven years as a bonded labourer seemed a reasonable price to pay for a chance at adventure in the New World. But who was the only one of five comrades to have survived the flux and fevers, and who’d fled the biting insects and fetid air of the inland forests for the relative safety of sea air. Who, having broken his contract, had no choice but to find protection among other wanted men. Who, at heart, was just boy barely out of his teens, living among strangers and with no place to call home. 

So through his fifth drink he’d offered up enough information to let the more suspicious ears around them know the tide would soon wash him from this place and he was no particular threat. Then, as he’d nursed the dregs, he traded talk of England for tales of pirate life, and elected not to see the desperate sadness in the boy’s eyes. 

“I met a man in a tavern…” Thomas said with a soft huff of laugher, “the start of many a ruinous tale.”

“I met a man on the steps of Westminster Palace…” James offered in teasing retort, his gaze lazily roving over those places where water trails were turning Thomas’ shirt translucent. “But yes, there was man and there was a tavern and there were tales,” he agreed. “He was the one who gave me the details of their life. He was keen to talk, wanted me to know about all he felt was good in it. At first I thought he was trying to convince me of the good, trying to present a sympathetic picture before begging me for a passage home, but in the end I think he was trying to convince himself. Maybe even trying to find some form of absolution, a recounting of the balance of his life to a man who would vanish into the night.

“But he’s the one who made me realise that piracy doesn’t exist simply because there is instability or a lack of power. That dualism we’d always assumed; the lawless dark and the lawful light. Piracy also exists because it offers an attractive and credible alternative to men who don’t wish to be bound by laws they feel are unjust. Laws you and I have often said are unjust. Ones that mean I cannot vote but men like Albie de Vere can,” James said with a vague wave of his hand that somehow encapsulated the totality of their debates together on the vagaries of the world. 

“Not now he’s effectively exiled in Geneva he can’t,” Thomas said briskly.

“You argue for systemic change,” James said choosing to ignore the comment, “well, the pirates of Nassau have changed the system.”

“So you think what…?” Thomas asked as moved to kneel at the head of the bath, pressing a kiss to James’ shoulder as he lay aside the dripping queue and began to soap his back, abandoning the linen for a time, unable to resist the temptation of touch. “That rather than trying to pardon pirates we should be finding a way to have them voted in as governor?”

“It’s working in Port Royal,” James pointed out. “Well partly,” he qualified. “And I suppose to some extent that is what I’m saying. I’m not suggesting the pirates aren’t violent and lawless and everything you’d expect them to be, so no, they can’t simply be handed power over honest men. But I’m wondering whether one reason we may have struggled to impose stability on the New World is because it’s finding it’s own stability, it’s own balance. One where pirates chop timber, which merchants peddle and empires purchase. Where an ex-pirate is allowed to enslaves others and where freed slaves serve on pirate crews. A balance that I can’t entirely fathom,” he said as he trailed off with a sigh.

“Is it a balance you think we might come to understand in time?” Thomas asked. 

“Perhaps,” James said with a shrug. “I do want you to read my accounts and talk with me. I’m sure it can’t all be as seductive as it seems,” he agreed, voice firm for a moment before it trailed off into uncertainty.

“Seductive?” Thomas asked, his voice low as he teased out the question. “That’s an interesting choice of expression, what is it about New Providence you found seductive?”

James stilled as he once again contemplated the idea he’d earlier blurted out to Miranda, seeing in his mind’s eye the image of Thomas’ hair bleached white by an unending sun, and the brilliance of clear blue waters. Imagining the happiness that could be found in the warm sand of isolated coves, in a place far away from prying eyes and the strictures of society. Remembering how foolish he’d felt the moment it were given voice. 

“What if...” he began carefully, reaching for the first step of a logical argument. “What if the problem of the New World isn’t simply that it turns honest men into dishonest ones? What if men we have labelled as dishonest actually consider themselves to be living honestly under their own codes?”

“Then I would say we should examine the ethics of those codes,” Thomas offered, “and if they, or some part of them, hold merit, we might want to consider how they could be incorporated into the way the island is governed. But I would also say that we were getting ahead of ourselves, given our primary task is to bring stability and order. Surely debates on how the place may be governed are a secondary consideration?”

“Of course they aren’t,” James objected as he dropped his chin to his chest, murmuring appreciatively as Thomas massaged his neck. “You conceived of the pardons because you understand, where your father doesn’t, that the only way to end violence and resistance is by creating a shared understanding of a peaceful future…”

“…and if the future we’re offering threatens the pirates’ understanding of an honest life then they will continue to resist,” Thomas interrupted as he began to rinse the soap from James skin. “It’s an intriguing thought,” he acknowledged. 

“Yes,” James agreed. “I have begun to wonder whether we’ve been short-sighted these last two years. We shouldn’t have been debating how to find and keep an honest governor, we should instead have been asking how we help Nassau self-govern.”

“You really think pirates can become effective colonial governors?” Thomas asked again as he wrapped his arms around James for a moment, pulling him back against his chest. “And I thought I was the idealised dreamer in this partnership,” he commented with an affectionate squeeze. 

“No, I think you can become an effective governor of pirates,” James said, twisting his head to look at Thomas, far more sure of the idea now Thomas had acknowledged the underlying principle. 

“Me?” Thomas asked, pausing in the act of scooping water over James’ shoulders.

“Yes, think about it,” James said keenly. “The pardons will work for a lot of the pirates, maybe most of them, men like Dickey who just want be able to live safely and call somewhere home. But there will be many who cannot conceive of ceding hard won freedoms. Freedoms you and I talk about and consider to be good. The freedom to vote, to own property, to organise. So why can we not create a system where they don’t need to give up those freedoms. Create a way of governing that protects the rights of everyone, one that means the pirates will no longer have any need to fight.”

“You’re serious?” Thomas said with a gentle shake of his head, his eyes narrowing as he let himself consider the implications of the idea. He wasn’t as skilled at this as James, who could divine a speakers’ motive and plot out all possible end games the instant an idea were presented. But as he tried to imagine what James was suggesting, some future in a colonial mansion on a far distant shore, he kept returning to the fact that any such future meant leaving England’s shore. And that thought gave him pause. 

“Yes,” James said earnestly, craning his neck even further as Thomas knelt back and regarded him thoughtfully. 

“Okay,” Thomas said as he stood up and took one of the chairs beside the fire, resting his chin on an upturned palm as he leant forward. “And now do you want to tell me the rest of it?” he suggested calmly.

“Meaning?” James asked as he ducked into the water and set to rinsing off his own shoulders, realising that he’d let too much of his emotions show and hating that he was once again feeling like an overeager child.

“Meaning, this is nothing you couldn’t have said earlier. Meaning, you left here pondering how your naval career and what we have could coexist. Meaning, I can’t help but wonder whether there’s something else driving that suggestion.”

James let out a sound that was something between a humourless laugh and a sigh. “I have taught you to be too suspicious,” he commented roughly. 

“That, or I know you too well,” Thomas said evenly, ignoring the flare of anger and the distraction James hoped it offered. “Because I know the idea of me being governor has crossed your mind before. I’ve seen it. It’s there sometimes in your eyes, when I’m raging about my father or frustrated by secretaries or simply annoyed by the rain. Something that says you think there’s a place where I can be safe and easy and warm. Yet you’ve never actually voiced it before.”

“You knew I thought that?” James asked, his tone still sharp as he attacked the sole of a foot with the soap. “Why not say?” he demanded, annoyed that Thomas had left him to contemplate this alone.

“Because we both know I can’t leave London, can’t leave my obligations here,” Thomas said softly. “And it seemed cruel to force that acknowledgment into the light. Because I know the idea of me being fixed, when someday you will inevitably be ordered to roam, is painful for you. Which is why I ask for the rest of it, for what it is that’s made you raise the idea now.”

“I don’t even know what I’m about to say...” James said with a sigh, anger subsiding as he acknowledged the truth of Thomas’ words, yet was still unable to rid himself of the giddy idea he’d been creating in his mind.

“Very well,” Thomas acknowledged, “but neither will I unless you tell me.”

James glared at him for a moment before lifting a foot to rest on the edge of the bath and soaping his leg, letting the action be the reason for his averted eyes. “There are men like us out there,” James said.

“There are men like us everywhere,” Thomas said plainly.

“Living openly,” James said, his gaze flickering toward Thomas in the silence that followed. 

“You saw this?” Thomas asked, his tone careful and even. The kind of tone men used when dealing with the very simple or the very dangerous. One that suggested he knew precisely where James were going with this, and didn’t particularly want to acknowledge it.

“I saw hints of it,” James pressed on. “In that tavern. A dark haired man with his arm around the waist of a blonde. Something in the way certain pairs were with each, a more intimate awareness.”

“So the tavern was part molly house?” Thomas said with a shrug, “I could take you to half a dozen in the city where you’d see more than that. It doesn’t extrapolate out to…”

“They came and talked to me,” James interrupted. “They saw me looking. I thought I was being discrete, but clearly I wasn’t careful enough. It wasn’t a molly house, they weren’t engaged in anything so deliberate, so overt. They were simply sat in a tavern, drinking among friends, and they… They just looked comfortable. Happy. I…”

“You saw something you wanted,” Thomas said, his voice soft and sad, his expression growing even more wistful at the look in James’ eyes. Something that was well past hope and approaching desperate. Something that twisted into a flash of bitterness as he caught the sympathy on Thomas’ face. 

“The dark haired man seemed quite keen to let me know there’d be a knife in my ribs if I was a threat,” James continued briskly, as though sheer force of will could change the reality of this conversation. “But once assured my interest wasn’t hostile, they talked. A little. They were crewmates of Dickey’s.”

“Ah…” Thomas said softly, his expression light and wondrous for just a moment, the way it always looked when new understanding dawned, and which despite the situation James found himself delighting in. “ _Matelotage_ ,” Thomas added slowly, his cultured voice naturally accenting the word, giving it a depth and fullness that was echoed in his features as he grew thoughtful again. “Partners,” he added quietly, the word murmured mostly to himself, barely heard over the crackling fire and the lap of the water. 

“Yes,” James said just as softly, forcing himself to look at Thomas, fearing he’d see only the pity a more worldly man bestowed on a fool, or worse still the bewilderment of irreconcilable positions. The grief that he found shading those beautiful eyes hurt his own heart, yet there was also ease to be found in that shared understanding. 

“I’d heard of it before,” James continued. “About how piracy was a century ago. Back when things were far less organised, the colonies barely begun. Men used to partner with each other, to agree to fight together, to look out for each others' interests. It formed the basis of how the crews were organised. The rules of ships drawn up so that if one man died the other inherited his share of the plunder. It made the crews safer, more stable. Men were less likely to pick fights if they knew they’d be facing two men, or if one half of a partnership were riled the other would be the voice of reason. Men were less likely to be reckless, shift alliances, change ships if they had a partner to consider.”

“And to create the stability the crews needed, they had to be serious things, to have a sense of permanence. So men would look for someone similar to themselves, someone who saw the world the same way, considered the same things important. I think for most it was nothing more than a formalised friendship, and as the world around grew more secure, more organised, the need for them fell away. Except among…”

“..among those men where the partnerships had always been more intimate,” Thomas concluded softly.

James nodded, glancing away before he continued, no longer able hold that understanding gaze. “There are still pirate ships crewed by pairs of lovers, pairs of men who see them selves as married, living among others who recognise that bond. A few ships out of Port Royal, more out of Tortuga.”

“The Theban band,” Thomas commented quietly.

“it’s an obvious parallel,” James agreed as he stood up, offering Thomas a view of water cascading off his well formed rear as he briskly washed the remainder of his body, sinking back into the tub as he began to shiver, the December night air quickly cooling on damp skin.

Thomas stayed silent as he collected one of the folded linen sheets, moving to stand beside the bath where he glanced down at James, his heart full of love for this man who’d travelled two thousand miles in pursuit of an adopted ideal, and somehow come home with a radical vision of the world remade. A man who was so ruthlessly pragmatic he’d compromise almost anything to achieve a goal, but who this moment was sat curled in a tub, naked, open and vulnerable. 

“Are you done?” Thomas asked gently, moving to hold open the sheet at James’ nod. “So that’s what this is?” he concluded as James stepped out and allowed himself to be bundled into the embrace of rose scented linen and strong arms. “You want me to travel to the New World, with my handsome naval escort, and set up a system of governance where men feel free to live together?”

“Well it sounds ridiculous put like that,” James said with a sigh.

“Darling, please don’t take this the wrong way,“ Thomas said softly, resting his chin on James’ shoulder as he rocked them gently from side to side, “but it is quite probably the most ridiculous thing you have ever said. And I adore you for it.”

“I think I see a way it can work,” James said. “I’m not for a minute suggesting we…”

“Leave it,” Thomas said gently, his voice carrying just the hint of a plea as he turned James in his arms. “Just for tonight leave it, please. I see you have it all worked out in here,” he said, drawing fingertips across James’ forehead, “and I suppose I should have expected nothing less from one of your ideas. But can we please enjoy tonight for what it is, for it’s own sake?”

“What is tonight?” James asked, confused by the notion, but quieting as he glanced up into Thomas’ eyes, finding himself caught by the emotion within. 

“It is you and I,' Thomas said simply. “On the same continent, in the same city, in the same room. It is what I have been denied for three very long months. You’ve been away from me, and now you’re here, I don’t want to set that reality aside to begin considering tomorrows that may never be.”

James sighed softly as he nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said, “these things have been in my head the whole journey home, they…”

“They have been pressing on you, they feel urgent,” Thomas agreed. “And I of all people know how immediate a fine idea can be, but I am quite resolved that tonight we are not plotting how to change the world.”

“But you promise we can discuss it after tonight?” James asked.

“Yes,” Thomas said with fond patience, “tomorrow we shall set aside the whole day so we can discuss the wonders of piratical philosophy. Although only after you’ve gone to plead my pardons with Hennessey,” he said with a frown, that turned into a sharp chuckle. “You know, I think I have just realised what you and Miranda suffer,” he said in explanation, “the accommodations required to live with a man who has _ideas_.” 

“They are many and legion,” James agreed solemnly.

“Hmm,” Thomas said noncommittally as he let himself be kissed. “Now, I feel we should address the matter of your hair,” he said briskly, reaching back to tug at the rather beleaguered ribbon. It came away in his hand and he discarded the soggy mass onto the hearth stone as he tried to ease the queue apart.

“Don’t,” James objected, as he reached up to untangle Thomas’ fingers from his hair, wincing as the matted strands pulled at his scalp. “It will all need combing out when wet,” he said with a sigh. “Do we really have to do this tonight, it’ll take hours to dry,” he objected, the barest hint of a whine entering his tone, and Thomas saw him finally acknowledge how many miles and minutes lay between this room and the berth where he’d awoken. 

“It won’t take anywhere near that long by the fire,” Thomas insisted gently, “and in any event it’s a rather moot point,” he said as he held up the sodden mass of James’ queue. “There’s only the top of your head that isn’t damp,” he observed. “It makes no sense to require fresh water tomorrow when we have…well increasingly tepid water here and now,” he said dipping his hand into the tub. 

“Very well,” James agreed reluctantly as Thomas crossed the room to retrieve his banyan, holding out its arms as he returned, waiting patiently until James stepped into the garment with a sigh. 

“And if you’re not too tired,” Thomas said turning to sort through the stack of books on his desk as James belted the gown with more force than was strictly required, “I have acquired a copy of Mr Newton’s Opticks. I can read to you while we wait.”

“Who did you steal that from?” James asked his eyes lighting up with interest as Thomas lay the pale volume on the seat of the nearest chair.

“The Dean of Welles believe it or not,” Thomas said with a slightly mischievous grin. “He was wandering around Gresham a few weeks back bemoaning the state of the book trade in the Shires and the impossibility of women, I assume his wife and daughters, discussing anything other than fiction. So he has several of Miranda’s Farquhars, a couple of Cibber plays and probably a scandalised congregation. But I have a treatise on the colours of light. I think I have also acquired some tedious social event in the future, such that property can be returned to its rightful owner, but that is a problem for another day,” he concluded.

“This would have been easier with me still in it,” James said with a sigh as he eyed the bath. 

“You know full well it would not,” Thomas retorted firmly. “You are too long, or the bath is too short. Either way I am reliably informed that drying Persian rugs in a London winter is akin to one of the labours of Hercules and a task I am not to require of the servants ever again.”

“Yes I remember the lecture,” James said as he retrieved the footstool and set it beside the bath, arranging himself delicately upon it, long legs arranged tidily before him.

“Which would have lasted for half the time it did, but for your suggestion of a acquiring a Scottish fishing smack and hoisting the rug in the rigging,” Thomas said as he gathered James’ hair into a careful knot and eased him backward, letting him settle comfortably as he stood to retrieve the wide-toothed ivory comb. 

“It wasn’t actually a suggestion,” James reminded him, “I was simply musing on the fact that increased wind speed would be of assistance, and in answering your question about where that could be found, observed the inshore waters around Shetland were notably blustery.”

“Well whatever it was, Miranda wasn’t amused,” Thomas said as he moved to perch on the opposite rim of the bath, fanning out James’ hair, letting the strands swirl and stretch as he played his fingers idly through the damp curls, enjoying the act of setting them in motion within the water. 

“No,” James agreed as he shuffled his shoulders a little, resettling his position. “You do realise it’s the only time I have known you accept that discretion might be the better part of valour?” he asked.

“I’m not sure my retreating to your rooms for a day or so until tempers calmed, had much to do with valour,” Thomas pointed out as he gently separated out a section of hair and began to draw the comb through its ends, easing the strands into neat furrows that lingered a moment on the surface of the water before beginning to sink into its shaded depths. “Valuing time spent alone with you, whilst abandoning any obligation to wear more than a nightshirt to draft correspondence; that I remember enjoying.”

“Until you grew tired of peeling distemper and lukewarm vitals sourced from street vendors,” James pointed out with a soft smile at the memory.

“I don’t remember you arguing with any great passion to stay,” Thomas countered, working his way methodically upward, smiling with anticipatory knowledge as he approached the nape James’ neck. 

“No, perhaps not,” James agreed, his voice rounding into a soft moan as Thomas drew the comb over his scalp in a long, slow curve of perfect pressure. “You are very good at this,” he murmured as the gesture was repeated and he arched into the touch.

“Reactions such as that do provide some incentive to master otherwise mundane skills,” Thomas said with a smile as he used the handle of the comb to separate out another section.

“So the next time you’re pretending to be despairingly obtuse in the hope I’ll abandon whatever argument you don’t want to acknowledge, I should discard logic and simply seduce you into compliance?” James asked, groping back to find Thomas’ arm and tease his fingers against the skin. 

“Possibly not a technique to try in a Whitehall antechamber,” Thomas mused as he let James pull him forward so he could press a kiss to his wrist. “But not one I’d be adverse to you trialling elsewhere,” he agreed as he tipped James chin and bent down to steal a brief kiss of his own. 

“Then what argument would you like to start with?” James asked, his eyes following Thomas as he sat back on the rim of the tub.

“We have established that we are not arguing tonight,” Thomas corrected.

“Have we?” James asked and it took Thomas a moment to realise the question was genuine and not a glib retort.

“I may not have expressed that thought,” he acknowledged with a dip of his head, “however enjoying tonight for its own sake precludes arguments.”

“Thomas Hamilton declines a debate,” James teased with a smile. “Is that not one of the signs of the apocalypse?"

“The horsemen were through here earlier,” Thomas agreed.

“I’m sure that upset the housekeeper,” James commented distractedly as he let his eyes grow unfocussed, staring vaguely into the shadowed space of the ceiling where he could just about make out the grotesques that guarded each plaster panel. He lingered a moment on the wings of a phoenix, watching with lazy interest as the shifting firelight painted them in muted reds and oranges. He let his eyes slip shut as the weariness of earlier crept back over him, leaving him longing for the simplicity of his unadorned rooms or the peace of the sea. For a gentle swaying space where he could conjure dreams of a light filled land that allowed men to cuddle in taverns without reality intruding.

“Well, if we’re not arguing, and we’re not discussing pirates, and I suspect you’re not prepared to let Newton anywhere near this much water, what do you want to talk about?” James said, opening his eyes and forcing a lightness into his tone that he did not feel.

“There must have been notable things from your voyage that don’t involve politics,” Thomas insisted, “tell me about those.”

James let out a heavy sigh as he contemplated the reality of shipboard life, where tasks were the same day in and day out, and the same faces were seen in the same places, and time passed in the same steady pattern of bells. Things that formed a comfortingly familiar life aboard ship, but that could be nothing other than mundane in their telling. 

“Things such as how one of the ensigns had a habit of grinding his teeth so annoying I was forced to reassign watch personnel simply to avoid sharing duty with him?” James asked. “Or how one of the seamen ended up on the sick list for three weeks having wrenched his shoulder from its socket when he slipped on the ratlines? It really was not a notable voyage,” he observed in a tone that sat somewhere between thankful and disappointed. 

“If that’s all there is to tell, so be it,” Thomas commented with a smile, “but I was hoping for some heroic account of how you battled a tempest, or spotted some fantastical beast of the sea.”

“I plotted a course to avoid a storm on the outbound journey,” James said firmly. “Which was less heroic and more arithmetic, I suppose. Though given the devastation we learned it wreaked, I am not sorry. Had I realised you wanted improbably exciting tales of life at sea I would have…”

“…made up some wonderfully implausible story for me?” Thomas teased into the pause that followed James arching into the press of the comb and letting out another little soft moan of easy, unhurried pleasure. 

"…stopped to pick up a copy of Defoe’s latest newssheet on my way home,” James finished dryly. “I am not risking my ship for the sake of your amusement,” he chided. 

“Yes, there would have been a certain irony to the Reserve being wrecked after we rescued her from foundering,” Thomas agreed.

“Not to mention the cost to life, limb and your purse,” James continued in the same reproachful tone.

“But irony would have been the greater wound,” Thomas said definitively.

“Naturally,” James said with a roll of his eyes. “We had persistent drizzle from the Azores onward if that’s of interest, through frankly I feel there is nothing quite so depressing and dull as being reminded that the peaks of your hat are perfectly placed to drip cold water onto both of your shoulders simultaneously. Or that the caulking in the deck planks needs addressing as there are five separate streams of water awaiting you in your cabin. We did see a school of dolphins around the Iberian Basin; they had calves with them,” he offered.

“That is more interesting,” Thomas agreed. “I think I should like to observe the sea mammals one day. I’ve seen Rumpf’s illustrations of course, but a static drawing can’t capture the grace of a living being.”

“What of Leonardo’s sketches?” James challenged lightly.

“Perhaps,” Thomas allowed after a moment of reflection, “but do we see movement in those sketches because its shown to us, or do we transpose movements we already hold in our minds onto the sketch. Are we seeing a representation or reliving a memory?” he posited thoughtfully.

“I had never stopped to consider that,” James said, flinching a little as Thomas separated out the final sections of hair, easing apart a matted knot with as much care as he was able.

“Nor I before now,” Thomas agreed, resting his hand momentarily against James’ head in mute apology.

“Though it is an intriguing notion,” James continued, offering up what was clearly the start of a thought.

“What?” Thomas asked. “This is not one of those times I can read your mind, my love, some form of exposition is needed,” he added, the tolerant smile quite audible in his voice.

“Such disappointments befall man in life…” James mused playfully. “I was merely thinking that whilst it’s clear two people can look upon art and see different things, we do not expect two people to gaze upon an observational sketch and see different things. Yet if you’re right and memory is brought to bear, then a man with no memory of horses cannot see what you or I would in those drawings. Which leads me to wonder whether, when gazing upon a sea chart, I see what my officers do, or whether we each see what is in our mind’s eye. Does the purser translate the distance it describes into hold space and the price of casks; the boatswain into canvas and cordage?”

“Perhaps,” Thomas said. “You should ask them next time you meet,” he pointed out. “And what do you see?” Thomas asked as he balanced the comb on the edge of the tub and retrieved the soap, lathering it in his hands before beginning to work it into James’ hair.

“Beyond the literal distance and the practicalities of planning a voyage? Knowledge, I suppose,” James said after a moment’s thought. “A chart is a literal representation of exploration and discovery. The setting down, the fixing of true things about the world. Potential as well perhaps,” he added more thoughtfully. “Any map is the result of curiosity and hope, those things that drove people to search into the unknown, the same thing that makes scientists and philosophers consider new ideas. And it gives me the potential to travel, to follow them with less risk and more certainty. It allows the botanists and the naturalists to head out and broaden our knowledge yet further.” 

“I have always thought them exciting too,” Thomas agreed as he massaged his fingers over James’ scalp careful to keep his touch slow and soft, as despite his teasing with the comb he could see the tiredness beginning to steal over James. “Sit up a little,” he directed as he began to gradually gather in the rest of James’ hair, working soap into the tresses until they were all coiled atop his head.

“Exciting?” James queried.

“Is the potential of new knowledge not exciting?” Thomas posed. “Are you not enthused by the promise of Newton in a moment? You look at a sea chart and see oceans you’ve travelled and shores you’ve seen…”

“Not always,” James said, shifting a little uncomfortably as soap began to slide down his neck and he groped about for the discarded linen. “The Pacific is an utter mystery to me.”

“But I know nothing outside Europe,” Thomas continued as though uninterrupted. “Those charts are the promise of new sights, new experiences, new peoples. Exciting,” he concluded.

“You see the potential for excitement and novelty everywhere; you’re a inveterate hedonist,” James teased, his smile broadening as Thomas caught his eye, and silently reminded them both that was no bad thing.

“Whilst you may be the more reserved of the two of us, I can hardly see you settling for a puritanical lifestyle,” Thomas pointed out. “You have far too much passion in you for that,” he observed as he stood up and took a moment to study James, poorly supressing the smirk that teased at the corner of his mouth.

“What?” James demanded darkly as Thomas stepped to the fireplace and retrieved one of the pitchers of clean water. 

“Tip your head back,” Thomas directed as he ignored the question, deciding that his thoughts about whether a man with two feet of damp, soap slicked curls coiled onto his head could rightly be called passionate were probably best left unexpressed. “The water’s not warm anymore,” he warned, “though I’m assuming you don’t want me to call for more?” he added rhetorically.

“I’ll cope,” James agreed, though he was shivering lightly by the time the second pitcher sat empty and Thomas were rubbing at his hair with the discarded linen sheet.

James tolerated the attention for a minute or so, but the second time a flailing hem threatened to catch his eye he reached up to still Thomas’ hands, intending to take over his own ministrations. Yet as their hands met he found himself sliding his fingers into Thomas’ own and staring up at his lover in the moments of gentle quiet that followed. 

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“You’re welcome,” Thomas replied easily.

“No,” James said with a shake of his head, tightening his hold as he felt his heart swell with affection. “I don’t mean thank you for this,” he said cocking his head vaguely toward the abandoned tub, “I mean…it seems an age since there were anyone I could talk to properly,” he said feeling. “Someone whose mind thinks to link the question of memory and perspective. I’ve missed this so much. Missed you so much.”

“I know,” Thomas agreed, as he knelt to press a kiss to James’ forehead, “I love you too,” he added with a soft smile. “And I have so much to talk with you about. Watts has published a new hymn I would have your opinion on, Tate’s written an excoriable address on the triumph of the union that I know you will hate, and we absolutely have to go and see Booth in the new tragedy at Queen’s.”

“What’s his costume this time?” James asked knowingly as he let himself be directed toward the hearthrug. 

“Some chimerical basterdisation of a Saxon battledress and Roman toga,” Thomas said with a grin. “Very much above the knee and it does have to be seen to be believed, but the performance is engaging enough. Though I think you’d be more interested in the fact Rowe’s dedicated the thing to Halifax, and the boxes spend more time looking out for supporters and opponents than they do watching the stage. The drama of the audience is thoroughly entertaining.”

“I thought we were not putting the world to rights tonight,” James said as he reached out to cup Thomas’ face. “Though your enthusiasm for everything you encounter is another thing I have missed,” he commented fondly. 

“You normally consider it exhausting,” Thomas countered with a smile.

“Then clearly I miss you exhausting me,” James said with a grin as he let his hands fall to caress Thomas’ chest, his expression widening into delightfully uneven dimples as Thomas, unmoved, raised only a placid eyebrow. 

“Dry your hair a little more,” Thomas insisted, pressing a fresh linen into James hands as he stood to strip out of his damp shirt, and strode to retrieve his nightshirt from beneath a pillow, donning both it and his gown under James’ interested eyes.

He retrieved the comb from the bath and the fine boar bristle brush from the console table, before settling himself on the rug, resting his back against a chair and drawing James to sit between his legs. 

He reached for the comb first, easing out any tangles the drying had caused, before switching to the softer brush, starting to draw the hair away from James’ head and letting it fall softly onto the padded silk of his gown.

They lapsed into silence, or perhaps more accurately did not rush back into conversation, each of them quite content to linger awhile in quiet relaxation as Thomas continued his meditative movements. The natural sheen of James‘ auburn waves slowly emerged from the slicked straightness of damp strands, and gradually, ever so gradually his shoulders began to slump, his spine rounding in a way it only ever did when he were truly exhausted. 

Thomas felt his heart contract a little, the way it did every time he was reminded that the navy had claimed James long before he. Reminded him that the tender man that flickered behind those eyes was irretrievably snarled by its strictures, and that they weighed on him more heavily than James could ever admit. 

Questing fingers tugged at the underside of a knee, and Thomas followed the silent direction, crooking his leg against the chair and letting James curl up against his thigh. 

“Do you want me to read to you?” James asked quietly as he glanced back at Thomas. 

“No,” Thomas said with a soft shake of his head. “The book starts with definitions and axioms, which are more than I can cope with tonight, and certainly far more than you can,” he added, stilling the brush for a moment and reaching out to gently turn James’ head back to its resting place, keeping a firm pressure until James once again relaxed against him. 

“Close your eyes,” Thomas directed in a whisper as he stroked his hand over James’ head. “Rest a little if you can.”

“Talk to me,” James said as he obeyed the suggestion, nuzzling himself into Thomas as he settled more comfortably. 

“Of what?” Thomas asked with a smile as he took up the brush again, working yet more gently even as he tried to hurry the last of the dampness away.

“I don’t care,” James said thickly, “recite your last parliamentary address if you have to. I missed hearing you speak.” 

Thomas considered the request for a moment. “Full fathom five your father lies; of his bones are coral made; those are pearls that were his eyes: nothing of him that doth fade, but both suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange,” Thomas began.

“That’s not your parliamentary address,” James interrupted, his voice dulling as last of the day leeched from him.

“No it’s Ariel’s,” Thomas agreed feeling James’ slow smile against his skin.

“Any reason you’ve decided to quote drowning at me?” James asked.

“No,” Thomas said contemplatively, “the verse simply came to mind. Although I can’t actually imagine a better play to quote at a sleepy man the sea has just delivered safe home from the brave new world.”

“Perhaps not,” James agreed. “You may continue,” he said, a touch of imperiousness creeping into his voice as he tapped a finger against Thomas’ calf.

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said dryly, and turned his mind to what he could remember, letting James prompt him when his memory failed, neither of them remotely concerned as snippets of sonnets and Marlowe and Johnson wound their way into his reciting. James grew more heavy against him, the weight of him changing as he ebbed between wakefulness and drowsing. It was in one such time that Thomas finally lay the brush aside and drew his fingers through the soft curls, listening as bells of St Anne’s drifted up from the south, the last peal of their hour chime fading long before the nearer, deeper sounds of St James’ sounded. 

“Come on,” Thomas said softly, stirring the sleepy weight of his own James, “let’s go to bed.”

James murmured a drowsy objection, but roused himself readily enough, eyes sharpening with the swiftness of a man used to being watchfully alert.

“It’s just gone ten,” Thomas advised as he gathered up the various discarded linens and set them a safe distance from the fire, before easing back the panels of a few screens and letting the heat begin to expand into the room, the warmth fading from his back as he approached the bed. 

“It’s not too late, and I had such plans for tonight,” James commented as he set his gown over the coverlet and shrugged into his nightshirt, eyeing the unlit wall sconces somewhat mournfully.

Thomas chuckled as he slipped between the sheets, easing the stoneware warmer away with his toes and turning into James’ arms. “They can wait,” he said with a shrug that was lost among the weight of the bed clothes.

“There was going to be ravishing,” James protested, glancing up at Thomas through lowered lashes.

“Your coy looks don’t work as well when you can barely keep your eyes open,” Thomas advised wryly. “Go to sleep love, we have the rest of our lives for ravishing,” he assured, pressing a last lingering kiss to James’ lips, watching him fade back into dreams as easily as he roused just minutes earlier. 

Thomas lay awake for a little time, letting himself idle in a state of warm contentment. He drifted as long as he could among the tangle of limbs and the soft whispers of breath, reacquainting himself with the heart-easing truth of what lay between them. Resting happy and blessed, until he too was taken by the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> The quote of Ovid that James and Thomas refer to is "the crop of corn is always more fertile in the fields of other people; and the herds of our neighbours have their udders more distended." An early take on the idea the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The Guttenberg translation can be found [here](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47677/47677-h/47677-h.htm).
> 
> The verses Thomas quotes toward the end, as well as the title of the fic, are from Shakespeare's The Tempest. 
> 
> There really was a [bad storm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scilly_naval_disaster_of_1707) in October of 1707 that resulted in the deaths of between 1400 and 2000 sailors. James was right to navigate around it.
> 
> For those that are interested in why I've set this in 1707...in my head canon the events in London which commence in 1705 take place over a couple of years. Which I believe can be inferred from the text. In Season 2 when James is trying to convince Vane, Eleanor and Richard Guthrie of the value of Abigail he talks about having prepared for the invasion of Nassau for years. In Season 3 when Vane and Teach are talking about how long it is since they saw each other it's said to be 8 years, and during the discussion between James, Vane and Teach on Ocracoke beach it's revealed that James's vision for Nassau is the reason why Teach left. So I take that to mean James has been in the West Indies for around 8 years, and thus did not leave London until 1707. I am aware that other timings are suggested elsewhere, and it's also implied that Eleanor was the one who threw Teach off Nassau...but what can I say. A story is true; a story is untrue.
> 
> And as a last comment, although I've loved writing this, it has been quite a challenge at times, because dialogue can so easily become ponderous and wooden, and my experience of 18th century London is...well, limited. But hopefully it works. Though please do use the comments to tell me what you made of it - good, bad or just plain indifferent.


End file.
